Players try to avoid futility record
Franchise has never lost eight straight regulation games since move to Calgary
Just when you thought this colossal collapse, this miserable meltdown, this frustrating flop couldn’t get any worse, but ...
The Calgary Flames now need a win to avoid historic humiliation.
In 37 seasons since moving north from Atlanta, the Flames have never lost eight straight in regulation. Never.
Connor McDavid and the archrival Edmonton Oilers will try to change that in Saturday’s Battle of Alberta at the Saddledome (8 p.m., CBC/Sportsnet 960 The Fan).
It’s the NHL’s hottest scorer against the NHL’s coldest team. Uh oh.
“There’s pride on the line, and especially this next game against the Oilers,” said Flames forward Curtis Lazar after Friday’s practice at the Saddledome. “You never want to lose to our provincial rivals, so that’s an easy game to get up for.
“I think if we can just get back to playing a simple, solid and effective 60 minutes, that will do wonders for our hockey club. The bottom line is we’re banged up and the mood is not where it should be, and rightfully so just because we’re out of it. But you have to find a way to salvage something.”
This has been a sorry spell for the Flames, a seven-game splat that started when they were still fighting for their playoff lives and has now extended into garbage time.
They have been outscored by a 33-8 margin during their skid.
Offensively, they have been blanked three times. It was nearly four, but waiver-claim Chris Stewart buried a rebound with 21.4 seconds remaining in Thursday’s 5-1 blasting from the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Flames’ top two goal-scorers, Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk, are both parked due to injuries. Their offensive engine, assists ace Johnny Gaudreau, has missed the past two contests for family reasons. (With his father, Guy, now on the mend after a cardiac event, Gaudreau was en route Friday to rejoin the team and could be back in the lineup for the Battle of Alberta.)
And defensively? During this seven-game slide, the Flames have surrendered three hat tricks — to San Jose Sharks deadline acquisition Evander Kane, to Vegas Golden Knights surprise story William Karlsson and to Blue Jackets rookie Pierre-Luc Dubois.
“We’ve lost seven, but there are six of those games that I thought we played our tails off,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan. “I was asked the other day, ‘How do your score goals?’ Well, that’s really the toughest thing to coach. You can’t go shoot it in for them, right? You can ask them to get to the net, take shots, be in the right spots. But at the end of the day, what we can control is our effort and how well we play defensively. And that’s what was disheartening (Thursday). I thought we were too loose.
“If you go back to the L.A. game (Monday) ... We’re in L.A., that’s a good team, and we give up six chances at five-on-five. (Thursday night), we gave up eight after the first period. That’s what I didn’t like.”
They can’t afford to serve up that many opportunities to McDavid.
Dating back to Feb. 1, the reigning MVP has piled up 26 goals and 49 points in his past 29 outings. He has surged to top of the NHL’s scoring race, almost a shoo-in now to win the Art Ross Trophy.
And just wait until the 21-yearold whiz hears that he could turn bad to worse for the Flames. Bad, that is, to historically bad. The Flames’ franchise record for consecutive losses is 11, but they at least forced overtime in the fifth of those setbacks. Shockingly, that streak-of-bleak came during the 1985-86 slate, when the locals sorted out whatever was ailing them and eventually advanced all the way to the Stanley Cup final.
There was another wretched stretch that started just before Christmas in 1998. Down to the fourth and fifth guys on their goaltending depth chart, those Flames lost eight in a row but again played beyond 60 minutes in one of those.
Most recently, an eight-game slump in December 2014 included seven straight regulation defeats before they at least mustered a loser point.
This latest funk hasn’t even featured a close call.
Now, the erasers are ready. “There’s definitely no quit here,” said Flames winger Michael Frolik. “We’re competitive guys and nobody likes losing. Even if, at this point, it doesn’t matter (in the standings), we still want to play for each other.
“It’s always more fun when you can win some games.”
Definitely no quit here. We’re competitive guys and nobody likes losing.